Desert Solitaire
I just cannot say this delicately: you cannot be a Planet Patriot without having
read this book! His other books are great too, but
Desert Solitaire
is the absolute MUST READ!
The Monkey Wrench Gang - the hilarious novel that was the inspiration for Earth First!
The Journey Home - Great collection of essays in defense of the American West -- laced with fantastic Abbey humor!
- Terry Tempest Williams
"All men are brothers, we like to say, half-wishing sometimes in secret it were not true. But perhaps it is true. And is the evolutionary line from protozoan to Spinoza any less certain? That also may be true. We are obliged, therefore, to spread the news, painful and bitter though it may be for some to hear, that all living things on earth are kindred."
"The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only paradise we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need -- if only we had the eyes to see ... No, wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, as vital to our lives as water and good bread."
"We have agreed not to drive our automobiles into cathedrals, concert halls, art museums, legislative assemblies, private bedrooms and the other sanctums of our culture; we should treat our national parks with the same deference, for they, too, are holy places."
"My final condemnation of existensialism: obsessive self-obsession. A completely homocentric egocentric anthropocentric view of life and the world ... unacceptable to me now. I think I sensed something of this way back in 1951, at UNM, when I objected, in a course on existensialism, that it was an 'indoor philosophy,' just as jazz is an indoor musick and Christianity an indoor or man-centered religion. An infantile vanity lies at the heart of all these enterprises.
Humanity's view of the world as our property, our dominion, our stewarship, is like that of a child who imagines himself as the center of existence, with all other beings having no purpose but to serve him."
One final paragraph of advice: Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am -- a reluctant enthusiast... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it's still there. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards.
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